LAUSR

Abstract The necessity for improving performance of solar cell has been caused the development of methods for nanomaterial synthesis with tunable properties. Herein, CuO/TiO2 nanocomposite, for the first time, is prepared by microplasma-assisted electrochemical method in aqueous solution for using dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The results of TEM and EDS indicate that the Cu nanoparticles dispersed in TiO2 lattice. Moreover, based on the current density–voltage (J–V), the power conversion efficiency, open-circuit voltage (Voc) and the short-circuit current density are 9.3%, 0.68 V and 18.8 mA cm−2 in CuO/TiO2, and 6.5%, 0.71 V and 12.94 mA cm−2 in pure TiO2, respectively. These results reveal that the performance improvement could be due to the deduced band-gap energy, increasing life time of charge carriers and surface coverage of the sensitizing dye over CuO/TiO2 nanocomposite.